I have searched the forum here for a possible solution to my problem but have not come across anything that helps my situation. I am still very new to Linux and Debian in general. I have had only limited exposure to Linux over the last 20 years or so and only recently decided to finally give it a real try.

Last night I installed the latest Debian 9 via the CD image on a USB Flashdrive. Everything appears to have gone smoothly. I have a TP Link TL-WN722N wireless adapter that I want to use to connect to a wireless network in my home because where the computer is in the house, running an ethernet cable to it is not an option. When I initially plugged in the adapter, it was recognized as being plugged in, but I got the message in the Network Widget that the firmware was missing or something like that. From doing some other reading, I found that I needed to install the atheros-firmware package in order for the adapter to work with Debian. I downloaded the atheros-firmware package in a .deb file and via terminal installed it using the dpkg -i firmware package name.deb command. Once that was done, the Network widget then recognized the adapter and I was able to see the available wireless networks. When I try to connect to my wireless network, I get the trying to connect graphic with the spinning ying and yang thing but eventually I just get the Wireless network was disconnected message and the adapter never connects. It has been quite frustrating to this point. Is there anyone that may have possibly been through the same problem and has found a solution or someone that could possibly help me get the adapter working? At this point I am about to once again surrender to the fact that perhaps Linux is just one of those things that is above my head. Any help and information would be greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for searching and for mentioning that firmware is installed. That is the first thing that gets people usually.

The problem you're having sounds a lot like the nasty issue with network-manager, called wifi.scan-rand-mac-address this gets a lot of people. The issue also affects Realtek, Ralink, and Broadcom devices that I use.

Thank you very much for the reply and information. I will give that a look over and let you know if it corrects my problem. Once I get that up and running, I should be able to update my installation and hit the ground running from there.

Mine has the Atheros chipset. After installing the firmware and adding the command:

[device]wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no

into the NetworkManager.conf, everything is working great. I updated the installation and I am amazed at how fast this distro works with my hardware setup, I have a rocketship. I am very happy with it overall.